Law and Law with Law Studies in Europe

The Law School at Somerville provides students with challenging courses of legal study in a friendly and supportive environment.

The Somerville Law School community comprises undergraduate and postgraduate students and the tutors who teach them and guide their studies. The College admits around 6 undergraduate students each year to read for either the three year BA in Law or the four year Law with Law Studies in Europe. In addition, a number of graduate students are admitted to read for higher degrees such as the BCL and MJur masters courses (around 5-6 per year), and for the MPhil, MLitt and DPhil research degrees. The graduate school is extremely international, with recent students coming from Australia, India, Iran, Ireland, Sweden and the Czech Republic.

Admissions

We encourage talented students from all backgrounds to apply, and do not have a preference for any particular A-level subjects (although we do not accept General Studies in making offers for the law courses). Students can study for the three year BA degree, or the four year BA Law with Law Studies in Europe. More details on these courses can be found in the University’s undergraduate prospectus.

Studying Law at Somerville is demanding and challenging, and requires students to develop the ability to read complex material with an eye for detail, relevance and importance, and to reason clearly, and argue persuasively, both in oral debate and in their written work. In admitting students, we look for these qualities, and for intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm for university study in general, and legal study in particular.

While the law tutors welcome applications from undergraduate candidates seeking to defer entry for one year, candidates should be aware that competition for places in Law at Somerville is intense, and that the law tutors must be satisfied in offering a deferred entry place that the candidate would be amongst our very best candidates applying in any given year, and not merely the year in which they have applied. All candidates applying for deferred entry in Law at Somerville who are invited for interview will be asked in the interview if they would accept a place for the academic year immediately following application.

Further information regarding admissions procedures and studying law at Oxford can also be obtained from the Law Faculty’s website.

Law Resources

Somerville’s Law Tutors are dedicated to high quality teaching in Law. Students will experience a variety of teaching methods – lectures, seminars, tutorials, presentation work, legal problem solving – during their time at Somerville. Subjects taught in Somerville include Roman Law, Land Law, Trusts, European Union Law and Jurisprudence or Philosophy of Law. Other subjects are taught by specialist tutors in other Colleges, with whom the Somerville Law Tutors have reciprocal teaching arrangements.

Somerville has a flourishing Student Law Society which organizes moots, debates and speaker meetings. This society is run by second year undergraduate students, and all students, whether undergraduate or postgraduate are encouraged to get involved. The Law School also benefits from strong relations with alumni. Somerville Lawyers is a group of Somerville alumni working in a variety of legal careers, mainly in London. The group brings together present and former Somerville students with an interest in law, and has been successful in raising funds to support the study of law at Somerville, and in organizing events at which careers and other advice can be provided to current law students.
College scholarships and exhibitions are available to Somerville law students who perform at a high level in their studies. There is a dedicated prize for the best results in first year university exams sponsored by the law firm Hogan Lovells, and a prize for the best performance in second year college exams sponsored by the Somerville Lawyers Group.”

The College has an excellent undergraduate library, housing one of the best College collections in Oxford. The library has a dedicated Law Reading Room, for the use of students reading law at Somerville.

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